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The purpose of this paper is to assess if the core value of Chinese traditional culture (harmony) still remains in managers’ hearts, and what factors influence this core value’s persistence. This was done by assessing the harmonious competencies of China’s county and department-level officials based on the competing values framework.

A survey of 1,000 county and department-level officials was taken at random based on the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security’s public sector employee listings. An empirical assessment was made and a hierarchical linear regression approach was used.

Though Chinese traditional culture has been blended with communist ideology and Western practices in government administration, the core value of Chinese bureaucracy still remains that which is carried in officials’ minds. In general, public officials possess a satisfactory level of harmonious competency. The regression results showed that some factors influence harmonious competency significantly, which disproves the view that harmonious competency might be merely engendered in officials by being born and growing up in Chinese traditional culture.

Given the assumption that a Chinese-born citizen could inherit the core value of its traditional culture is commonplace, the paper reveals that because the current Chinese culture is a mix of socialist thinking, traditional culture and Western practices, it cannot be assumed any more that the core value of Chinese culture is inherited automatically. On the contrary, it could be promoted by changing or cultivating certain factors in workplaces.

This paper aims to make a call for the establishment of a new research journal: a likely title for which would be Chinese Public Management. The background to this is clearly set out here for posterity’s sake. The review of selected papers unveils an emerging trend amongst Chinese researchers for undertaking deeper, cluster-based analyses. See, for example, the insights presented in this issue concerning competitiveness in China’s automobile industry.

A diary-like account has been made of the series of recent events that sparked the author’s interest in creating a journal to be known as Chinese Public Management. Why is there currently this focus on empirical research for public policy? From the author’s five years’ work for a serial visiting professorship across China, he has found that there are now well-established, substantial databases dedicated to the subject. Even more importantly – as this paper illustrates – a growing community of scholars has become keen to embark upon an in-depth, quantitative research. Perhaps, for the new journal, we would need an editor concentrating specifically on databases. Furthermore, undertaking scholarly work that is still of practical relevance for guiding authorities in their formulations of public policy will add a whole new dimension to the available research.

There is scope for a new endeavor that documents management research within the public sector in China. This may be seen as a sister journal for “Chinese Management Studies” that focuses on the other, much larger Chinese sector, that is, governmental organizations.

This paper documents the emergence of the necessity for a new journal about management in China.

Students of mixed-ability learning together in one class is a challenge for all educators, especially in English as foreign language (EFL) contexts. Timed reading activity (TRA) is an activity that can help educators address the learning needs of students in such a context. The present study investigated the effectiveness of the TRA in enhancing EFL students' reading rate and reading comprehension as well as in making them aware of potentially wrong reading strategies that they may be using.

A classroom intervention was designed for a group of preparatory year (PY) students at a Saudi university. The study sample consisted of one intact class of 29 students. Data were collected from pre- and post-tests of students' reading rate and reading comprehension as well as progress charts. In addition, a questionnaire was used to identify the reading strategies used by the students.

The results showed that the TRA generally enhanced the reading comprehension and the reading rate of EFL mixed-ability students as well as raised their awareness of their use of wrong fast reading strategies.

The results of the study support the use of TRA as a remedial reading activity in EFL mixed-ability classes.